This event report demonstrates how Arby's, the restaurant chain, revived its fortunes through a mixture of insight and marketing courage.

While Arby's was famous for its roast-beef sandwich, this style of meat accounted for less than 1% of QSR visits.

An under-appreciated asset, however, was the wide variety of other products the brand could offer, helping it stand out in a crowded category.

Its bold, tongue-in-cheek positioning around the "We Have the Meats" tagline reconnected with hungry shoppers and boosted transactions.

2

Mythbuster: Defining competitors too tightly

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Les Binet and Sarah Carter, Admap, December 2014, pp. 9-9

This article discusses the common problem of defining competitors too tightly, losing sight of the broader market and adopting closely targeted advertising that eventually leads to loss of market share.

This article discusses the common problem of defining competitors too tightly, losing sight of the broader market and adopting closely targeted advertising that eventually leads to loss of market share.

In the example used, the company had benchmarked against one large competitor and not noticed the rise of several smaller brands that had eaten away at its market share.

Sometimes called the 'Mephisto Waltz' this is a common problem where two large brands become so obsessed with each other that they become mirror images on strategy, eventually causing a death spiral.

To avoid this brands should focus on effectiveness rather than efficiency, not define their target market too closely and adopt a longer term view.

3

Be human, get organised, make money: Social media best practices from Royal Mail, O2 and KLM

This event reports looks at how social media can best be used for customer service, marketing and driving sales. View Summary

This event reports looks at how social media can best be used for customer service, marketing and driving sales. Royal Mail, the UK’s postal service, has found that Twitter is a vital accompaniment to its offline activity, as it extends the relationship the British public have with its postmen and postwomen, and offers a quick and efficient way of dealing with any issues. On its part, O2, the telecoms brand, has set particularly high standards in terms of social organisation, outlining procedures relating to governance, processes, training and team setup, thus allowing it to take a highly integrated approach on this channel. KLM, the airline, has gone one step further, and runs regular promotions on social sites, even allowing consumers to vote on which offers they would be most interested in. It often fills empty seats in a similar way, and has now moved into passenger gifting to expand this model.

4

Under the halo

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James A Rohde, Admap, February 2012, pp. 20-21

Looking at a rival brand's attributes and halo effects can give a better insight into your own brand's performance and positioning. View Summary

Looking at a rival brand's attributes and halo effects can give a better insight into your own brand's performance and positioning. Taking three separate brands and getting respondents to score them in the areas of overall satisfaction, likelihood to recommend, friendly staff, price, quality, variety of product and fast checkout, and then by centring the data, comparisons can be made and much of the noise that clouds the analysis can be eliminated.

5

Use visualization to make data a part of every conversation

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Lee Feinberg, Warc Exclusive, Datacentric, December 2011

Lee Feinberg, senior manager, decision planning and visualization of Nokia USA, gave this presentation at the Warc Datacentric conference in London. View Summary

Lee Feinberg, senior manager, decision planning and visualization of Nokia USA, gave this presentation at the Warc Datacentric conference in London. He addressed the question of what are the key challenges with data and opportunity from visualization and explained why business and sample size isn't everything. Data overload and making sense of data can be managed through making important information obvious, which canallow data influencing all brand conversations.

6

How to create an effective price promotions strategy

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Rod Street, Warc Best Practice, October 2011

Promotional activity is at record levels in many geographies and industries. In the FMCG sector, promotions have risen in most countries in the last three years. View Summary

Promotional activity is at record levels in many geographies and industries. In the FMCG sector, promotions have risen in most countries in the last three years. This explosion has created a challenge for brand owners to manage both the volume of promotions and the price reductions attached to them. It is well established that almost none of these promotions will deliver long-term growth. However, they are clearly useful in delivering many goals such as securing distribution, increasing penetration, driving trial and taking or defending market share, for instance. An effective promotional strategy must be built on three steps: defining the role and goals for the strategy; creating a baseline of the business, and its competitors, current activity and impact from promotions; and setting clear goals for each of the business's brands and categories and for its portfolio as a whole.

7

Google acquires Motorola Mobility

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Dan Daynes, Mindshare, August 2011

Following Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility, this article analyses the details of the $12.5 billion deal which allows Motorola to largely maintain independence while accelerating their growth, while Google benefits from reinforcement in its efforts to own the mobile sector. View Summary

Following Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility, this article analyses the details of the $12.5 billion deal which allows Motorola to largely maintain independence while accelerating their growth, while Google benefits from reinforcement in its efforts to own the mobile sector. This will also lead to drive both companies' innovation, as well as continuing in the drive to scale Android as a device-neutral operating system.

8

Competitive Intelligence (Emerging Industry Overview)

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Gale Emerging Industry Overviews, 2011

This paper provides an overview of the competitive intelligence industry, primarily in the United States, loosely defined as the legal and ethical collection of information regarding the operations of rival corporations. View Summary

This paper provides an overview of the competitive intelligence industry, primarily in the United States, loosely defined as the legal and ethical collection of information regarding the operations of rival corporations. The paper gives a snapshot summary of the emerging industry in the US, with additional sections on its development, organisation and structure, current conditions and leading companies. It concludes with a brief section about the industry in other countries ('America and the world') as well as a list of further information sources and reading.

9

What can we learn from brand leaders?

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Peter Field, Admap, June 2008, Issue 495, pp. 16-17

This article, by Peter Field, reviews what lessons can be learned from studying brand leaders. Its main arguments are that brand leaders can learn from their challengers in order to reinforce their pre-eminent position, as evidenced by major players including Ariel (in Germany and Austria), Telstra BigPond, Hahn Premium Light, Manitoba Telecom Services, Omo/Via and Powerade. View Summary

This article, by Peter Field, reviews what lessons can be learned from studying brand leaders. Its main arguments are that brand leaders can learn from their challengers in order to reinforce their pre-eminent position, as evidenced by major players including Ariel (in Germany and Austria), Telstra BigPond, Hahn Premium Light, Manitoba Telecom Services, Omo/Via and Powerade. The strategies for growth adopted by brand leaders are also relevant to non-leaders and can be successfully emulated, and the successful approach of big brands such as Mattel, KitKat, Canon, Glenmorangie and Tesco are examined to demonstrate this.

10

Competitive market analysis from a demand approach: An application of the Rotterdam demand model

The design of successful marketing strategies requires knowledge of the competitive market structure as well as the competitive patterns that exist in the market. View Summary

The design of successful marketing strategies requires knowledge of the competitive market structure as well as the competitive patterns that exist in the market. Only with this prior knowledge can we take the right decisions: by knowing which of our competitors would be most affected and which would have a greater influence on our results. In this paper, a demand model is presented as a useful means of performing competitive market analysis using store-level data. Using this model, we aim to demonstrate an easily manageable tool that can be used to conduct competitive market structure analysis and to analyse the competitive patterns that exist in that market structure.

The paper argues the need to understand and integrate other forms of information, particularly competitor intelligence, with consumer research to deliver information-based consultancy. View Summary

The paper argues the need to understand and integrate other forms of information, particularly competitor intelligence, with consumer research to deliver information-based consultancy. It introduces different information gathering techniques and provides suggestions on how to undertake analysis of data from multiple sources.

12

Client-driven Convergence Of The Market Research, CRM And Competitive Intelligence Industries - An Australian case study

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Helen Simpson, ESOMAR, Innovate! Conference, Paris, February 2005

This paper presents a case study of an Australian employer association, Australian Business Limited, that developed a leading-edge “insights” capability by bringing together into a single, integrated team its market research, market and competitive intelligence, CRM, and data mining capabilities that provided the insights underpinning the development and implementation of the organisation’s 2001-2003 Strategic Plan. View Summary

This paper presents a case study of an Australian employer association, Australian Business Limited, that developed a leading-edge “insights” capability by bringing together into a single, integrated team its market research, market and competitive intelligence, CRM, and data mining capabilities that provided the insights underpinning the development and implementation of the organisation’s 2001-2003 Strategic Plan. The paper outlines the evolution of the capability over the three-year plan and discusses how the approach and business model of its market research suppliers needed to adapt to a multi-disciplinary client team.

13

Can you afford to be the same?

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Alexander Biel, Admap, October 2004, Issue 454, pp. 42-43

Alexander Biel, president of his own California brand consultancy, argues that brands that fail to differentiate themselves in meaningful ways take on the characteristics of a commodity and will fade from the consumer’s radar. View Summary

Alexander Biel, president of his own California brand consultancy, argues that brands that fail to differentiate themselves in meaningful ways take on the characteristics of a commodity and will fade from the consumer’s radar. He describes three ways of determining and assessing brand distinction – brand personality, brand relationships and brand character.

Stephan Butscher and Balraj Kalsi (Simon-Kucher and Partners) discuss how large companies with strong brands can respond to cheap competition. View Summary

Stephan Butscher and Balraj Kalsi (Simon-Kucher and Partners) discuss how large companies with strong brands can respond to cheap competition. They show that reducing the brand’s price, or doing nothing are dangerous, and increasingly companies are turning to two brand strategies – such as Sony with its premium Sony brand, and Aiwa as its fighting brand to compete against the even lower priced competition. Examples from HSBC and bmi are also given.

Over the last several decades, advertising effects on sales have been studied without appropriately taking into consideration competitors' advertising activities. View Summary

Over the last several decades, advertising effects on sales have been studied without appropriately taking into consideration competitors' advertising activities. As a result, advertisers often instinctively match competitors' spending proportionately when it is monitored. The weakness of such a competitive parity approach is that they implicitly assume zero-sum competition only. This study identifies a variety of competitive conditions under which better budgeting strategies can be formulated. Specifically, four types of competition are conceptualized based on how an advertiser and its competitors affect each other's sales according to level of media advertising spending. In addition, appropriate strategies for setting advertising budgets to deal with each situation are discussed. A mathematical method is developed to measure advertising effectiveness for both the advertiser and competitors on sales of a focal brand. The method computes current and carryover effects, identifies in which type of competition the advertiser is operating, and, accordingly, determines which budgeting strategy best suits the situation. In an empirical illustration, the method was applied to data collected monthly over eight years. The analyzed product was Scotch whisky sold in Thailand.

16

Marketing and the metaphor of war

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Peter Cooper, Admap, June 2003, Issue 440, pp. 19-22

Peter Cooper uses military metaphors to illustrate how marketing battles and wars can be won. He compares revolutionary warfare with new brand development and compares Mao's principles of revolution with marketing objectives. View Summary

Peter Cooper uses military metaphors to illustrate how marketing battles and wars can be won. He compares revolutionary warfare with new brand development and compares Mao's principles of revolution with marketing objectives. Propaganda is likened to advertising, communications and PR. He compares the role of market research with conventional and guerrilla warfare. He asks if peace, encompassing co-operation and partnership could be an alternative metaphor.

17

Best in Brief: Think 'Velcro'

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Market Leader, Issue 17, Summer 2002, pp. 66-66

This is a summary of a piece in MIT Management Review and suggests that competitive advantage can exists for short or long periods and that companies in high-velocity markets need to think 'Velcro', t...

This is a summary of a piece in MIT Management Review and suggests that competitive advantage can exists for short or long periods and that companies in high-velocity markets need to think 'Velcro', that is that organisational strategy should be firm and clear but able to change quickly.

In response to a potentially disastrous reduction in the size of the jeans market, Levi Strauss commissioned Added Value to deliver a new 'brand vision'. View Summary

In response to a potentially disastrous reduction in the size of the jeans market, Levi Strauss commissioned Added Value to deliver a new 'brand vision'. Changes in the market as a whole (a move from jeans to combat, khaki and other casual wear) were identified. A new typology of consumers was generated - the leading edge (cultural creatives, modernists, and 'the edge'), and the mainstream (fast fashion flirts, labellists and regulars). A multi-national youth panel was created to provide data, including on product innovation, and innovations in retailing were also introduced. The paper demonstrates that research was instrumental both in identifying, and in helping to solve, the problem.

This paper examines the ways in which firms use the internet and its contents to conduct competitive intelligence. View Summary

This paper examines the ways in which firms use the internet and its contents to conduct competitive intelligence. Due to the increased access to competitive data and the elimination of geographic boundaries, the internet raises new concerns about corporate privacy and corporate espionage. To investigate these issues, the competitive intelligence process, the internet as a research tool, and laws on privacy in Europe and North America are reviewed to understand the benefits and challenges of conducting competitive intelligence in a global context. Guidelines for evaluating the ethical status of internet competitive intelligence practices and protecting corporate secrets in a digital world are proposed.

20

When good marketing causes companies to fail

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Clayton M Christensen, Market Leader, Issue 6, Autumn 1999

Good marketing can cause companies to fail. Several large, famous American companies got caught out by 'no frills', newcomers providing disruptive technology and coming from unexpected directions. View Summary

Good marketing can cause companies to fail. Several large, famous American companies got caught out by 'no frills', newcomers providing disruptive technology and coming from unexpected directions. Companies that have survived this challenge have done the following. Firstly, in order to cope with this challenge, market leaders have set up listening posts in the lowest tiers of their markets, outside their traditional marketing systems. Secondly, the CEO allocated resources to the disruptive venture, because they normal resource allocation process would have killed the initiative. Thirdly, the CEO set up an autonomous division to attack the mainstream business from below (case study: Hewlett-Packard).

21

Service quality evaluation in the Pharmaceutical industry. Development of a qualitative/quantitative methodology: a case study

The use of this methodology allows us to draw a performance chart of ourselves as well as of competitors, identifying the strong cores of services that are to be maintained, the weak cores that need to be improved and those others of a more complementary or non-significant nature. View Summary

The use of this methodology allows us to draw a performance chart of ourselves as well as of competitors, identifying the strong cores of services that are to be maintained, the weak cores that need to be improved and those others of a more complementary or non-significant nature. It also lets us know the structure of the competitors' chart as from the physicians' perception and the relationship drawn between us and others. These results are extremely useful nowadays for the development of any kind of business and even more so for the pharmaceutical industry, as physicians are increasingly fine-tuning their perception on services as the differentiating factor of the companies' performance. It is precisely in this field where differences become more noticeable, and not so in the field of products, where equilibrium and similarity are increasingly prevailing.

Data, data everywhere, but no competitive intelligence in sight describes many of the competitive intelligence systems in place today. View Summary

Data, data everywhere, but no competitive intelligence in sight describes many of the competitive intelligence systems in place today. Competitive intelligence - when used to its fullest with adequate knowledge dissemination - can actually help overcome some of the problems of information management inherent in today's multi-division and global corporations. The corporate intranet appears to be the ideal way to successfully disseminate competitive intelligence. Intranets provide a powerful information technology that provide many benefits to competitive intelligence departments, including: cost effectiveness; simplified system integration and growth; and enhanced security.

This paper presents an overview of the global developments in competitive intelligence and discusses the development of business intelligence/ competitive intelligence in North America, contrasting the development with other regions of the world. View Summary

This paper presents an overview of the global developments in competitive intelligence and discusses the development of business intelligence/ competitive intelligence in North America, contrasting the development with other regions of the world. Competitive intelligence monitoring activities are also expanding globally, which has introduced the challenge of capturing this information in global markets.

This paper considers the development of competitive intelligence as a formal discipline. The sums spent on competitor analysis in Europe are still relatively small but dependence on customer analysis is being diluted as an increasing number of companies appreciate that over-dependence on customer-driven strategies is less and less likely to produce results. View Summary

This paper considers the development of competitive intelligence as a formal discipline. The sums spent on competitor analysis in Europe are still relatively small but dependence on customer analysis is being diluted as an increasing number of companies appreciate that over-dependence on customer-driven strategies is less and less likely to produce results. In terms of their use of competitive intelligence, companies seem to transition through a series of stages: competitor awareness; competitor sensitive; and competitor intelligent. The factors influencing the growth of competitive intelligence and constraints on the growth of competitive intelligence in Europe are also reviewed.

25

Market Entry in China. The Value of Market Intelligence/Competitive Intelligence

This paper attempts to illustrate the state of market intelligence/ competitive intelligence in Asia by presenting a case study on the use of market intelligence/ competitive intelligence in market entry decision-making in the soybean milk business in China. View Summary

This paper attempts to illustrate the state of market intelligence/ competitive intelligence in Asia by presenting a case study on the use of market intelligence/ competitive intelligence in market entry decision-making in the soybean milk business in China. The client's situation and objectives are outlined, the market intelligence/competitive intelligence approach taken is explained, methodology detailed, and main findings presented. Potential limitations to the market intelligence/competitive intelligence approach are highlighted throughout the case study. Finally, some broad conclusions on trends in market intelligence/ competitive intelligence and potential problems and opportunities specific to Asia are made.